Report Guernsey Colour Ringed Gulls

Sightings of Guernsey colour ringed Gulls can be entered here for an instant life history, or sent to pkv@cwgsy.net for a life history to be returned by e-mail to observers.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Lesser Black-backed Gulls from Northern Europe

When we began our intensive week-long colour ringing at
Chouet Landfill each late May/early June we assumed that pretty much all the
birds present at the landfill were local birds. We now know this to be far from
the truth with many adult gulls being present which are not breeding, and with
significant numbers of immature gulls from colonies further north still passing
through the islands at that time.

In the past few weeks I’ve received reports of three such
birds, all ringed as immatures in May at Chouet Landfill, and subsequently
reported from The Netherlands (two) and Norway (one).

Without the colour ringing programmes we would never have
known just how important Chouet landfill has been for migrating and dispersing
gulls, as well as to those nesting locally.